Month: April 2016

Happy Saturday everybody – especially if you saw Captain America: Civil War yesterday (did you love it? I did, full review here). If you’re not feeling particularly happy maybe this will help you out:

Punisher Series On Netflix

Yesterday Netflix announced via Twitter that The Punisher would be getting his own Netflix series. In Season 2 of Daredevil, we were introduced to Jon Bernthal’s The Punisher and he was amazing: he calls women ‘ma’am’; loves dogs; and is super homicidal – who doesn’t want to bring that guy home to mum? With no details available yet, we don’t know when to expect him but keep an eye out.

Alicia Vikander To Play Lara Croft

Oscar-winning actress from The Danish Girl, Alicia Vikander, has been cast as Lara Croft in Tomb Raider. The rumour mill seemed pretty certain that Daisy Ridley would be taking on the role but were wrong. As much as I love Vikander and her body of work, I’m not a huge fan of this casting – still, I would be happy for her to prove me wrong.

The Flash Loses Its Director

In more DC-need-to-get-it-together news, their The Flash movie has now lost its director. We first saw Ezra Miller’s scarlet speedster in Batman v Superman and he is due to appear in his solo movie in March 16, 2018. Seth Grahame-Smith was signed on to direct but left the project citing “creative differences”.

Dreamworks Has A New Home

Dreamworks Animation, the company that brought us beautiful films such as How To Train Your Dragon and Shrek, are now part of the Universal Filmed Entertainment Group after being acquired by NBCUNiversal. This shouldn’t affect the content that they produce but it has raised the chances of getting a Dreamworks theme park.

Maze Runner Sequel Pushed Back

On March 18 whilst filming the third installment of the Maze Runner franchise, Dylan O’Brien was seriously injured. The film was to resume production on May 9 but his injuries are more severe than they were originally believed to be. The cast and crew have now been sent home and they will attempt to resume filming when Dylan is well enough.

That’s everything for today but it’s the end of the week so be sure to check back tomorrow for a whole round-up of everything that’s been happening this week.

Did you like Bernthal’s Punisher enough for an entire series? Would you like to go Dreamworks-land? Let me know in the comments.

For so long it felt like a distant dream but it’s real and it’s now out in UK cinemas. Captain America: Civil War is the best Marvel movie to date and has raised the bar for any superhero team-up that follows it.

Arriving on theatre screens only a month after Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, it’s impossible to not draw comparisons but I’ll make it brief. In my review of Batman v Superman I talked about how it was insanely ambitious but didn’t quite come together: well, Captain America: Civil War comes together.

The story is beautifully written and it’s Marvel, so of course there are plenty of funny bits but they also explore some deep, and at times painful, themes. There is a clear focus throughout the film and whilst there are plenty of different angles, they are unified by one simple story.

The pacing which has been an issue in other team-up films like The Avengers was flawless this time around. At no point in the 2hr 27min running time was I bored and once the credits began to roll all I could think about was when I was next going to see it.

The huge ensemble cast which led people to refer to the film as ‘Avengers 2.5’ worked well in conjunction with each other. Nobody got lost in the crowd or over-shadowed: this is definitely a Captain America film but equally, all of the other characters get their spotlight and they’re important for the progression of the story.

I could pick any member of the cast and tell you something great that they were involved in but my favourite of all was Tom Holland’s Spider-Man who made an amazing entrance into the MCU. We’re spoiler-free at the moment so I can’t say too much but make sure you keep an eye for him.

I can’t praise this film enough – the only thing that felt slightly uncomfortable was Martin Freeman’s American accent. It wasn’t bad, just strange and I found myself listening very carefully every time he opened his mouth.

Have you seen Captain America: Civil War yet? What did you think? How do you feel about the new Spider-Man? Let me know in the comments.

The 100: Join or Die (Season 3, Episode 13)

“The key to surviving on the ground and on the Arc is to keep fighting at all costs, against all odds.” – Pike

The City of Light is growing and it doesn’t look like they’ll be slowing down any time soon.

This week Marcus and Pike arrived in Polis and refused to submit to the City of Light so were taken prisoner. Needing Marcus to assist in locating Clarke, Jaha threatened Abby’s life and to save her, Marcus took the chip. Flashbacks of the day before the 100 were sent to the ground were featured heavily in this episode and we learned that Pike helped to prepare them. Clarke, Jasper, Octavia and Monty continued searching for Luna.

The episode opened with the streets of Polis covered in blood and the message was clear: you either join the City of Light or you die. I say it every week, but the show continues to get more and more intense: as the population of the City of Light grows I struggle to see how they’ll be able to stop it.

As the characters can’t immediately tell when somebody is under Alie’s influence, the show is really playing with the alliances that they’ve spent three seasons building up. Watching Abby manipulate Marcus was a fantastic scene this week – you can see his relief at seeing her and he obviously wants to trust her. I imagine that they’ll try a similar tactic if Clarke ever arrives in Polis and I’m not sure she’ll be able to hurt her mother.

For a while now, Marcus has been this pure light and symbol of peace – some may even call him a Christ-figure. If you weren’t calling him that then the heavy symbolism of hanging him up on that crucifix might having you saying that. I mean, a crucifix? Come on.

Unlike certain shows (I’m looking at you Arrow), the flashbacks felt like an important and relevant part of the episode. Initially, the most striking part about them was the innocence of the kids on the Arc: at that point we were able to call them kids but life on the ground has robbed them of that. We also saw Pike pre-ground and the show didn’t try to give him a sympathetic back story which I appreciate. As far as we can tell he has always been the same – his overall intentions are good but his method is cruel and wrong.

Nonetheless, seeing Pike getting cut by Indra was far from satisfying. I’ve spent the season wanting him to get his comeuppance but that kind of up-close cruelty was difficult to watch. Murphy saved his life, again proving how much he has grown from the first season.

It is a testament to how good a character Jasper is that, even amongst all of the sad and awful things that happen in the show, he doesn’t fail to make me smile.

By the end of the episode Clarke and co. had found Luna but Luna refused to help them. Now they’re in the middle of the ocean.

Will they convince Luna to help? How are they going to get back to land? Let me know in the comments.

Everything you need to know before Captain America: Civil War comes out tomorrow.

What is it?Captain America: Civil War is the third Captain America film and the first film of Phase Three of the MCU.

…”Phase Three of the MCU”?
I’m not really sure what’s tripping you up there buddy so let’s dissect everything. The MCU is the Marvel Cinematic Universe and it is divided into phases. The first phase was all the films from Iron Man to The Avengers and then the second phase was Iron Man 3 to Ant-Man. This film marks the beginning of the third phase. Also, just in case you were interested… we ranked all of the movies from the previous phases earlier this week right here.

Whoa, you ranked the other Cap films pretty highly: do I have to watch those before this one?
Good question – not necessarily although it would be very helpful to really just watch the entire MCU. I recognise that you may not have time for that in the next 24 hours so the top ones to watch before this are: Captain America: The First Avenger, The Avengers, Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Avengers: Age of Ultron.

That’s a lot of films. What’s this one actually about?
Well, the official synopsis that Marvel gave out says:

“Marvel’s Captain America: Civil War finds Steve Rogers leading the newly formed team of Avengers in their continued efforts to safeguard humanity. But after another incident involving the Avengers results in collateral damage, political pressure mounts to install a system of accountability, headed by a governing body to oversee and direct the team. The new status quo fractures the Avengers, resulting in two camps—one led by Steve Rogers and his desire for the Avengers to remain free to defend humanity without government interference, and the other following Tony Stark’s surprising decision to support government oversight and accountability.

So Team Cap v Team Iron Man?
Pretty much.

Who’s on what team?
Dude, it’s like you never even listen to me – I covered all of this earlier this week. You can check that out here. Also if you wanted to know a little bit more about the new people (Spider-Man and Black Panther) I’ve got you covered right here.

Is there anything that you haven’t already covered that you can tell me?
Well, the film runs at 2hr 27min; it has an amazing ensemble cast including Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson and Paul Rudd; and the critics love it.

Are you Team Iron Man or Team Cap?
I am strongly undecided but here are a bunch of celebrities choosing a side:

Arrow: Canary Cry (Season 4, Episode 19)

Laurel died last week and this episode was all about everybody dealing with their grief.

After Laurel died, a new Black Canary turned up in Star City but with a much more aggressive approach to fighting crime. The team tracked her down and stopped her from unintentionally ruining Laurel’s legacy. Everybody felt sad about Laurel’s death but Quentin, in particular, struggled with accepting the fact that she was truly gone.

For an episode about loss, the first half contained surprisingly little grief and a great deal more anger and guilt. Felicity blamed herself, Diggle blamed himself, Oliver blamed himself… I can see where they’re coming from but carrying the weight of the world is such a common trope in Arrow that it felt played out and boring. I really just wanted them to move past it and deal with the loss of Laurel.

The flashbacks became infinitely more interesting this week and in death, Laurel finally got some good scenes. The flashbacks dealt with the time where Tommy Merlyn died in Season 1 of the show and we saw Laurel and Oliver during that time. These were some of my favourite scenes in the show. Sadly, we’ll probably be going back to Lian Yu for the rest of the season’s flashbacks.

Quentin was not ready to accept the loss of his daughter in this episode and who can blame him? So many times, he’s thought that Sara was dead only to have her come right back. Paul Blackthorne delivered an amazing performance as a grieving father – at first I felt sorry for him but when he broke down with Oliver, I was sobbing along with him.

The final Ruve Adams scene was awful- Oliver stopped the mock-Black Canary from shooting Ruve Adams and then escaped. This all would have been fine if it wasn’t for the completely ineffectual SWAT team that stood by the entire time. Maybe they didn’t want to catch the vigilantes – I hope that that’s what the show was trying to do, otherwise it was just pathetic. Only half of them even raised their guns whilst they watched as Oliver slowly ascended to the roof.

So it is now official that the mysterious grave belongs to Laurel. The team is shaken but more than that, they are out for blood. There should be a great deal more intensity in these final episodes of the season.

What did you think of this week’s Arrow? Will you miss Laurel? Does this mean that Felicity’s back for good? Let me know in the comments.

Happy last day before Captain America: Civil War‘s release! Are there other things to talk about other than Cap? Shockingly, yes:

Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them Screenplay To Be Released As A Book

Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them (to be released 18 November 2016) marks J. K. Rowling’s screenwriting debut and will be the first time that we get to revisit the wizarding world on the big screen. This is all very exciting for the Potterheads of the world but even more so now as we find out that the screenplay will be available for purchase in book form only a day after the film’s release.

New Ghostbusters Video

This week Sony released a new video highlighting Chris Hemsworth’s character, Kevin, from Ghostbusters. As much hate as the reboot has received, I’m excited to see it and this video shows a very different Hemsworth compared to what we’re used to.

Sense8 Recasting

Season 2 of the Netflix series Sense8 began filming this year and I can’t wait to see it. The first season came out of nowhere for me and blew me away but we have just received news of a casting shake-up. Aml Ameen, who played Capheus in the first season has left two episodes into filming the news season: apparently he had a disagreement with one of the co-creators of the show. He will be replaced by Toby Onwumere.

That’s it today but we’ll back on Saturday with more news. Until then:

Do you want the FTBAWTFT screenplay? Has Kevin warmed you to Ghostbusters? Have you watched Sense8? Let me know in the comments.

The Flash: Back To Normal (Season 2, Episode 19)

“It’s just a regular day. And I’m just a regular guy.” – Barry

Who would have thought that an episode of The Flash without “The Flash” would have been one of the best episodes of the season?

This week we saw Barry adjusting to living life at an average pace. Harry went off in search of his daughter Jesse but was then kidnapped by a meta-human with super-strength called Griffin Grey. The rest of the team found Jesse and with her help they rescued Harry. Over on Earth-2 we found out that Jay kidnapped Caitlin because he loves her. Caitlin freed Killer Frost from one of Jay’s holding cells at which point Killer Frost tried to kill Caitlin but Jay killed Killer Frost before she was able to.

Barry lost his speed last week and this episode began by showing how his life was now different without it. This was a really cool part of the episode because on one level, it was funny but at the same time you genuinely felt sad and pitied Barry’s situation. Whilst having to queue for coffee isn’t the worst thing in the world, it was clear that what Barry wanted most was to be able to help people.

We really got to appreciate Tom Cavanaugh’s (Harrison Wells) acting range this week. Whilst he spends most of his scenes in the show playing this misanthropic, vaguely bitter character, we saw a different side of him at the end of the episode. The scene in which he re-united with his daughter Jesse was the most emotionally-charged part of the episode. It was a really beautiful, father-daughter moment and hopefully we’ll see more of that side of Harry as it looks like Jesse will be sticking around.

Speaking of Jesse, my feelings about her continue to fluctuate. When she first spoke to her dad in the episode she gave off this overwhelmingly bratty vibe but by the end I found myself liking her again. I’m really hoping she grow into a more consistent character as the season comes to a close. We got another Jesse Quick nod from Harry so in Season 3 we may see her as a speedster.

Griffin Grey was a fairly average villain but I loved his costume. When he first came on screen my initial thought was how strange it was that a middle-aged man was dressed like a frat boy. The reveal that he was actually 18 was so fitting and I wanted to clap for the wardrobe department.

On Earth-2 we saw more of Jay/Zoom and is it just me or did he get much more interesting once we found out that he was evil? Killer Frost’s voice was nothing short of grating and I wasn’t sorry to see her die: I found myself pro-Zoom this episode.

At end there were two big revelations: Zoom wanted to conquer more Earths and he was going to start with Caitlin’s. Also, Harry was going to create another particle accelerator (because the first one went so well) to give Barry his powers back.

Will the particle accelerator work? Do you like Jesse? What did you think of this episode? Let me know in the comments.